Not so much a general sports blog as an irregularly updated desperate plea for help.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

CIS Corner: McCleery helps Ravens avenge Acadia

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613 ...

HOOPS

Ravens:It probably should be treated lightly since his team has its eyes on a bigger prize, but senior forward Kevin McCleeryscoring 34 points on 16-of-19 shooting in the Carleton Ravens' win over Acadia last night at a tournament in Halifax has something of a "wow" factor.

McCleery is such a good glue guy for Carleton that it's nice to see him command the spotlight for once and become a go-to scoring option (of course, in the Dave Smart system, anyone can be the go-to at a given moment).

Acadia's not what it was last year, of course. Carleton hit half-a-hundred in the first half and won by 27. They play No. 9 Dalhousie in the semi-final tonight and if they win, play the Saint Mary's-St. Francis Xavier winner in Sunday's final.

Ottawa native Dwayne Johnson, by the way, had 17 points and nine rebounds to help No. 3 St. FX beat Lakehead 71-60. Lakehead's power forward, Yoosrie Salhia, had a big night, which raises the question how they would handle the low-post tandem of Aaron Doornekamp and McCleery.

Another Ottawan, Anneka Bakker, who's playing for the Alberta women's team, might get some consideration for a feature in next week's Sun Schools sports page. She had 16 points, six rebounds to help the Pandas beat Calgary last night in a matchup of Top 10 teams. In case you're wondering, yes, she is the daughter of Queen's Football Hall of Fame member Dick Bakker, who was part of the famed Gold Rush defensive line in the 1970s.

HOCKEY

The "baseball standings" for the eastern half of the OUA, with games remaining, probably should be repeated. Carleton lost 6-4 to York Friday and is at Ontario Tech Saturday (there's a webcast). The loss basically left them even with the Gee-Gees, who have those four games in hand.

Ottawa is at Toronto and Ryerson this weekend. Beating the Varsity Blues on the road would be such a bonus for them.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

One might construe Carleton's win last night over Acadia as some form of revenge, but really, it's not.First, the Axemen have had so many changes to their lineup from last March, they are virtually a different team.No Lual, no Krause, no Santana and even no Saintil....all key figures in bringing down the Raven dynasty.Even the coach, Len Berry, is no longer there.And even if all those principals remained from last year, a Carleton win against Acadia doesn't alter the fact that the Axemen ended not only the Ravens title hopes for '08, but ruined Carleton's shot at matching Victoria's 7 year run.The most impressive thing about Carleton is the fact that the Ravens have been a top echelon team for almost a decade despite facing major roster changes almost every season.That is a testament to Dave Smart's ability to recruit and his ability to work young players into the lineup seamlessly.However, the Ravens will take a big hit next year when their Kingston Trio graduates.If Smart can keep the Ravens on top without Doornekamp, Saunders and Turnbull, he deserves another COY award.

In women's hockey Ottawa beat Queen's 3-2 in a shoot out . The game was at a tournament at Concordia. Former Stinger and now Ottawa graduate student Jessika 'Grandma' Audet was in nets for the Gee Gees.

I put that in a previous post that Acadia, while representing the school that dethroned Carleton, is without almost all of last year -- coach Les Berry, Paolo Santana, Leo Saintil (only played 2 games so far), Andrew Kraus, Achuil Lual, among others.

Uhh -okay---the Gee Gees website is still reporting that Ottawa beat Queen's in womwen's hockey at the Hume tournament. However, the CIS web site says that Ottawa upset # 5 Guelph in a 3-2 shoot out, not Queen's. Queen's lost 4-0 to McGill and Ottawa meets McGill today in a semi. Ottawa's new web site looks great, but it would be nice if they would get basic info like who beat whom straight.